My relapses

I thought that'd get your attention.  When people hear that I haven't had any drugs or alcohol in twenty-two years, they think I must not know what it's like to relapse.

Au contraire.  Let's cast our minds back to early 1992...

I was twenty-four when I found out I was going to become a father.  Being a conscientious, caring (as well as stylish, handsome, and - dare I say it - humble) young man, I decided that I should quit smoking cigarettes.  I didn't want to expose my new baby to a bunch of smoke, and I didn't want it to grow up with a nicotine habit.

This was harder than I expected.  Although I'd only smoked for ten years, it wasn't easy for a guy with such an addictive personality to quit.  Over at friends' houses, I wasn't above digging a half-smoked cig out of the ashtray, as long as there wasn't too much ash on the filter.  I remember smoking the cigarettes I'd left in a half-finished pack in my car... the ones that sat on the dash for fifteen months while I was overseas.

It was tough, but I'd got clean and sober a few years previous.  I figured I could do it.

I was taking drafting classes, and would study all day at school, where it seemed I was surrounded by smokers.  Then, I'd go work at night, and try not to think about cigarettes.

But, meetings were the worst.  I loved going out and talking to all my friends at the smoke breaks.  And, hanging out before and after the meetings, while we smoked.  And, nothing felt better than a smoke, after I'd had to confront some emotional issue at a meeting.

So, every day, I'd "white knuckle" my way through the day.  And, when I got home, I'd reward myself with a bowl of ice cream.  A large one.  Like a pint.  Or more.

After a few months of rewards, my weight had gone up from about a buck ninety (I'd put on a little weight after getting married) to two-fifty.  And, within a few months of not smoking, I was bumming smokes.  And sneaking smokes.  Then, I bought a pack.  So, now I was a fat guy who was back to smoking, and also hiding it.  Great.

I've heard that it really doesn't work for an addict to control a habit, and enjoy it.  I think it's probably true.

Hearing in meetings about hiding usage, I knew damned well what I was doing.  So, I quit again.  After a while, I went to work in the family business.  Now sneaking cigarettes during the work day was no longer an option.

After a while, I quit craving tobacco.  This wasn't so bad.  Hell, I'd been making too much of a big deal about this!  Weeks turned into months.

At a meeting, I bummed a smoke.  It was cool; I had a handle on this.

As weeks went by, I was visiting friends who smoked.  I was going to meetings almost every night.  Mooch one before the meeting, one at smoke break, another after...

Eventually, I wasn't able to reconcile the fact that I was trying to hide this from my family, so I quit again.

One day, after not smoking for a year or two, I was on a friend's roof, helping with a home repair project.  The roof had a pretty steep pitch.  I lost my footing, and started to slide down, towards the edge... heading for the concrete below.  This was gonna' hurt.

Luckily, I grabbed a vent pipe sticking up through the roof right before I slid off the end.  Being afraid of heights, this rattled my cage.  My hands were shaking.

I bummed a smoke.

Before long, I was right back.

By this time, I'd changed jobs, and was working at a garage.  Nobody there cared if I smoked or not.  I could smoke during the day.  Before long, I was smoking all day.

Once again, living the double life didn't work for me.  So I quit.  And, I stayed quit for a number of weeks.

I quit smoking a few times while I worked there, but the periods I didn't smoke became shorter, and the length of time I stayed back smoking got longer.

My marriage was rocky.  I started smoking outside after our child went to bed.  Screw what the wife thought about it.

I took a job at a different garage.  I didn't even pretend not to smoke there.  I'd just given up, and was trying to keep my daughter from knowing.  I didn't want her to grow up to be a smoker like me.

Then, my wife and I got separated, and I got my own place.  At first, I didn't smoke inside.  Then, I was smoking in the bathroom, because it had a fan.  Eventually, I said to hell with it, and started smoking inside.

The price of cigarettes kept going up.  My chest was hurting from smoking.  I knew this was really dumb, and decided to quit.  I stayed off them for a few weeks, but... well, you can guess the rest.

After about a year, I reconciled with the wife.  Basically, I just didn't want to be a weekend dad.  This meant I really should quit smoking again.

Before long, I was waiting for my daughter to go to sleep, so I could go out and smoke that cigarette before bed.

I took a job as a train mechanic.  Work took me on trips out of town; I could pretty much smoke whenever I wanted, except for the few evenings I was home with the family.  Even then, I was smoking my Camel Filters whenever my daughter wasn't around.

I got up from my sofa one night, after watching some TV, and went into my bedroom.  This was maybe all of twenty-five feet.  When I lay down on my bed, I realized I was panting.  Twenty-five feet had winded me.

Funny thing is, I walked a few miles during the course of work, every single day.  So, I shouldn't have been that out of shape.  And, while I had a good part of that ice cream weight remaining, that shouldn't have done it, either.

The doctor told me I had asthma.  Great.  I'd smoked myself into asthma.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get more than a few days off my smokes before I'd go back.  My chest was hurting every day.  Cigarettes had jumped up again to five bucks a pack.

I had transferred into a job at the train yard, working third shift.  I was free to smoke all night.  Unfortunately, my lungs had other plans.  So, I started chewing tobacco, to get off the cigarettes.  Better for my lungs, and I would be more able to quit a habit I didn't like.

Well, that was the logic.

The way it played out was that I started putting Copenhagen Long Cut in my lip, and the cravings lessened.  Not disappeared... just diminished.  Trying to keep enough snuff in my mouth to keep the cravings away tore the hell out of my lower lip.

I started smoking cigarettes for the bad cravings, while chewing all day long.  I'd sit with a fresh dip in, and light up a smoke.  Somehow, the chewing tobacco idea wasn't working like planned.

Oh, and I'd become accustomed to the taste.  I'd rather chew than smoke.

After a year or year and a half of this, I decided that this was going to have to stop.  I was as powerless over tobacco as I had been over drugs and alcohol.  My chest was hurting more and more; I was taking inhaler hits after every time I smoked.  If things were this bad at forty-two, the likelihood of serious respiratory illness was frightening.  There was going to be no more nicotine for me anymore.

So, I quit.  And I prayed.  There's no more "oh well, I guess I can quit again" mentality.  Looking at how every time I quit, I stay quit for a shorter time... it points to progression.  Seeing how every time I start, I stay on tobacco for a longer, time, that shows progression.

At some point, I'm not going to be able to stop again.  I'll be screwed.

After a few weeks without any nicotine, the awful, irritable, can't-put-my-finger-on-it-but-something's-very-wrong feeling started to fade.  The whole world was less annoying.  My chest quit hurting so badly.

And, I started feeling weepy.  For some people, this wouldn't be noteworthy.  But, I'm one of those guys who just doesn't cry.  Except that, all of a sudden, I'd be watching a TV show, a commercial, hear a song on the radio, or have a sad thought, and I'd feel the tears start to well up.  I'd have to leave the room, change the channel, or whatever.  I knew that nicotine was a psychoactive chemical - it has to be; it calms me down, right?  But, I'd never had any idea that quitting it would have me one sad song away from the 'water works' trying to kick into gear.  Remember, decades have gone by where I didn't shed a tear.  Literally.

Luckily, that period passed.  I've got over half a year off nicotine.  But unlike before, I'm not so damned cocky about it.  I don't think about it being easy to stay off.  I realize that I've got to keep to the twelve steps; every time I went back to smoking, it was because I felt spiritually out-of-sorts.  Every time I'd picked back up, I had been upset about something.  Either angry, or afraid (there is a difference; it's mostly cosmetic).

So, nowadays, I have freedom from that habit, based on my spiritual condition.  Kind of a frightening thought, for an agnostic, don't ya' think?

When new people come in, hear how much time I have, and think that I can't possibly know what it's like for them to have bounced in and out of recovery for five or ten years... I might just have a little better grasp on how it feels than they think.

-M